Out of Place: Proper Living for Beloved Children (Part 1)
Notes
Transcript
But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Introduction
Introduction
The 1960s are considered to be the start of a “sexual revolution”. It is when “free love” became the theme and promiscuity left the bedroom and made its way into the public. By the 70s, culture had shifted enough to not only promote promiscuity but celebrate same-sex relationship as well. The first gay pride parade was held in 1970, followed by the rainbow flag in 1978. What started out as promoting the gay identity later incorporated lesbianism and bisexuality. Today, there are a number of sexual and gender identities that make up what we now refer to as the LGBTQIA+ movement.
But it’s not about the acronym or a political movement, and it isn’t really the openness of it all. It’s really much deeper; it’s about humanity’s rejection of God’s design for sexuality, gender, and identity.
Sexual deviation didn’t start in the 60s or 70s. It started much, much earlier. Does the name Casanova mean anything to you? Casanova was a real man who lived in the 18th century and wrote braggingly about his sexual exploits with over 120 people (notice I did not say women) which would be perverse by just about anyone’s standards. But the deviance of Casanova was not the start. It started much earlier than that.
The Roman emperor Caligula parties are well-known. But it goes back even further. You may recall in Numbers 25, the Israelites worshipped the Baal of Peor and practiced sexual deviance there to the point that God brought a plague upon them killing 24,000. But it didn’t start there. Sexual deviance—deviance meaning that we have deviated from God’s original intent for sexual relations began as far back as Genesis 4 when Lemech married two wives instead of one, deviating still from God’s union in the Garden of Eden of one man and one woman for life.
Sexual immorality has been more or less open to the public eye throughout the centuries, but it has existed almost as long as sin itself. There is a reason that prostitution is called the world’s oldest profession. But the fact that it is old does not mean that God winks at it. Our text this morning shows us as much.
As we take a look at these few verses, I want us to understand that God takes the sin of sexual deviance—deviating from his original design—seriously. It is serious enough to not only warn against the actual act, but against the words and heart behind it. And so we find Paul giving us three warnings this morning. The first warning is that we are to watch our loins. The second is to watch our lips. Finally, we are to watch our longings.
Watch Your Loins
Watch Your Lips
Watch Your Longings
Watch Your Loins
Watch Your Loins
The first warning that we have in these verses is Paul’s warning to watch your loins. This is the warning against the actual act of sexual immorality. This is the word porneia in which we get our word pornography and that old word fornication. And pastors and teachers and theologians have sought to explain what this word means, but I think it’s simplest just to say that porneia, in Paul’s writings, means sexual deviance. In other words, it is sex that deviates from God’s original intent. God’s intent as seen in Genesis 2 and reiterated by Jesus in Matthew 19, is for one man and one woman to be covenantally married for life and enjoying the pleasures of sexual intimacy together throughout their marriage. Anything outside of that, by definition, deviates from God’s intent and ought to be avoided. Paul put it this way:
But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
We have the idea of what sexually immoral means, but what about impurity? It’s not just the sexual act, but the impure heart as well. The word that is translated as impurity is the word akatharsia. You may have heard of the word cathartic before. Sometimes people will say that confession is cathartic or crying is cathartic. They mean that it cleanses—it makes a person feel clean inside. But if you put the letter “a” in front of a word it negates it, doesn’t it? If something were to be “acathartic” it means that it doesn’t make one pure/clean, but impure/unclean. This is in stark contrast to what Paul said Christ is doing in us.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
Why, beloved, if God is bringing us into holiness and blamelessness in Christ, would we seek that which makes us impure?
Paul wrote that things things are not to even be named among us! There are two ways that this could be understood. It could be that churches shouldn’t talk about these these types of offenses in any type of detail. However, that would mean that entire swaths of Scripture would have to be avoided in church. The other way of understanding it is that Paul’s warning here is that no one ought to be able to make an accusation against the church in regards to its sexual ethic. In other words, the church is not to tolerate, promotoe, or participate in sexual immorality.
Take just a moment and think about the many controversies that churches have had over the past few decades. While there may be a couple of financial controversies, are not the vast majority of scandals sexual in nature? Sexual abuse, adultery, cover-ups, and more. It seems like the Church has simply forgotten that Paul wrote these verses in Ephesians 5. This doesn’t even count the fact that entire denominations have abandoned the biblical sexual ethic and are tripping over themselves as to who can be more accommodating and affirming to sexual deviance.
But remember that Paul wasn’t just writing to the pastors of Ephesus; he was writing to the church itself. And in doing so, makes sure that every member—every saint bears responsibility.
Any sexual deviance is not to be named among you as a saint in the church of God. It’s out of place; it’s not proper for beloved children.
This warning goes back to what Paul mentioned earlier in chapter 4, when he mentions the Gentiles, a euphemism for unbelievers:
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
But that is not the way you learned Christ!—
They’ve given themselves up to sensuality and impurity. While sensuality is a different word, it is of the same effect. It is licentiousness; it is self-abandonment. It’s the attitude that if it feels good do it and do it as often as you can—especially when it involves sexual relations. Those who do this, Paul says, show that they have hardened their hearts against God. They’ve become callous. Forget what God thinks and says about such matters. All the truly matters is that I feel good and that I’m happy with who I am and what I’m doing. If no one else likes it, that too bad for them. That’s the sign of a hardened heart.
Paul said, that’s not the way you learned Christ! You didn’t learn that Christ came to cheer on your sins. When Christ was presented, he wasn’t presented as one who lets you do what you want, when you want, with whom you want. You didn’t learn that Christ simply wants you to feel good and be happy. You didn’t learn Jesus was your tool for self-gratification.
The way you learned Jesus was as the God who humbled himself for the good of man. He gave himself freely to others so that they may be saved from their sins—not so they can indulge them!
Indulging one’s sins—sexual sins specifically—is not proper among the saints. So Paul warns us to watch what we are doing with our loins.
Watch Your Lips
Watch Your Lips
But it isn’t just the loins we are to watch. We are to watch our lips as well. That’s the second warning: Watch Your Lips.
Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
And so, it is not just the sexual acts themselves, but sexual talk as well. The word that is translated as filthiness is not about getting dirty while playing or at work, but rather it is in reference to filthy talk. Some translations might use the words “obscene talk.” It has the idea of talking about things that we should be ashamed of speaking. There used to be a semi-joke back in the day after someone spoke some filthy words. One would ask, “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” The implication of course is that the person has a dirty mouth and would be ashamed if his mother heard him say whatever it was he just said.
Paul then warned against moronic talking translated as foolish talk. In context, just as filthy speech, foolish speech has to do with sexual immorality. Some might even translate this as silly talk. So you may have some who refer to sexual immorality on one end of the spectrum using filthy words, and some at the other end that may refer to it using silly words.
But to make sure that everyone understood what Paul was saying, he added another word: crude joking. Sin, in general, is no laughing matter. Specifically to this passage, Paul says that sexual sin is no laughing matter. Dirty jokes are out of place in the church or among God’s children.
A few years ago, I heard a pastor say something that hit me hard. He said that we as Christians laugh at the very things God weeps over. We laugh at the very things God weeps over. Sin is not funny. It’s tragic. It reveals a heart that is in rebellion to God. It reveals a heart that says that God is not sufficient for our every need and desire.
That’s why Paul continues on with his not that, but this crusade in Ephesians. Do you remember that from chapter 4? Don’t lie; tell the truth. Don’t steal; work hard and give away. Don’t speak rotten words; build up with your words. Don’t be angry, forgive. And here: no obscene talking, no silly talking, no dirty joking; give thanks instead.
The sexually deviant talk, wherever it might be on the spectrum, shows a heart that is empty of God-ward thanksgiving, for one cannot thank God for their sin. Paul has always taken this stance. He links the two back in Romans 1.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
Out of the heart, the mouth speaks. And when the mouth speaks filthy, silly, and crudely, it betrays its thanklessness toward God. Watch your lips. Listen to your own speech. It’ll tell you a lot about what you really believe deep down.
Watch Your Longings
Watch Your Longings
That takes us to the third warning. It’s not just the action of the loins or the words on the lips that we must watch out for. We must also watch our longings. We need to watch out for those deep-seated desires.
But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
Covetousness, also known as greed. While this could be the coveting of someone else’s body for self-satisfaction, it doesn’t have to be. Paul used the word “or” in this case rather than “and,” which gives a slight separation in context. It certainly would include lusting after a person, but in really it is simply “an insatiable desire to have more,” as Peter O’Brien put it. Like sexual deviance and impurity, covetous is out of place for God’s beloved children.
Paul wrote in verse 5 that covetousness—greed, or longing after more—is itself an idolatrous act. Idolatry is often no more than disordered love. It is often a good thing that gets put out of place. It’s good to want friendships, but when longing to find friendship or keep friendship takes priority over God, that friendship has become idolatrous. The same could be said about work, money, play, or anything. We may want something, but when that desire—that longing—keeps us from God and faithfulness to God, it is an idol.
Idolatry never goes well for God’s people. We must take heed that the God of the New Testament is still the God of the Old Testament. He does not change. He will never share his glory with idols—whether handmade or heartmade.
Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right.
For they call themselves after the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is his name.
“The former things I declared of old; they went out from my mouth, and I announced them; then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass,
I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say, ‘My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’
“You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forth I announce to you new things, hidden things that you have not known.
They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’
You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel.
“For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.
Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.
Idolatry profanes God’s name. He will not allow that to happen. If you are his child, there will be a day when he has had enough. There will be a day when he will put those who profess his name, but not in truth or right, yet continue to go after their longings—their covetous idolatry, through the furnace of affliction until we have been refined and our desires are rightly-ordered again.
It is better to repent now than be refined later. Living a life of persistent sexual sin or idolatry has no place in God’s kingdom. God says you can have your temporal pleasures in the domain of darkness or eternal pleasures in the kingdom of the beloved Son, but you can’t have both. You can’t worship the god of self and the God of glory. Any church, pastor, or professing Christian who teaches otherwise is not simply in error—they are promoting idolatry. And those who persist in doing so show that they do not truly belong to Christ.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we close out this portion of Ephesians, we have seen some stern warnings from Paul. We must watch our loins—the actual sexual actions from our body. We must watch our lips—the words that reveal a rebel heart. We must watch our longings—the disordered desires of an idolatrous soul that would exchange the God of glory and his kingdom for the god of self and the domain of darkness.
And we may not even realize how dark it is. During our trip this week, I’d be one of the first ones awake in our sleeping quarters. There was very little light coming in, but I was able to to maneuver, get ready, grab my Bible and books for reading, and slip out the door. My eyes were adjusted to the darkness that it wasn’t until I was in the light that I realized how dark the darkness was. Once I walked back into that darkened room—having been in the light—I couldn’t see. But the longer I stayed in the dark room, the more my eyes adjusted to the darkness again. The same can happen to us spiritually, beloved. The further in darkness we go, the longer we linger there, the less we realize how dark it is.
You see, as believers, we are to be imitators of God as beloved children. These verses we’ve studied this morning are not separated from the two Drew preached on last week. Paul uses them to contrast the behavior of beloved children. If we are imitators of God, we cannot go after sexual immorality for God set the sexual ethic from the beginning. We cannot laugh at sin for it grieves our Father’s heart. We cannot long for the things our heart wants for nothing and no one is greater than God.
There may be some here today that fight against sexual immorality and impurity. It comes in different forms—from secret lusts that only you, your phone, and God know about to open illicit relationships. But it is good to fight. Keep fighting. Don’t give in to the longings. In a few weeks, we’ll be looking at Ephesians 6 where Paul tells us to fight against the schemes of the devil by putting on the full armor of God. Just as you do not behave in your own strength, but out of your identity in Christ, so you do not fight in your own strength, but out of your identity in Christ and stand strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
I’m not saying that it will be a short fight. I am not saying it will be a long fight. I simply don’t know. All I do know is that it will be a worth-while fight.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Some here may have been fighting and are tired. Some may have decided long ago just to give in, or perhaps some may have never even realized there was a fight to be had. Yet now you hear the voice of God calling you out. You hear God’s voice say to you to turn from this and turn to him, not to shame you but to strengthen you to fight the good fight. He is calling you to find the satisfaction of your longings in him. He is the well of living water; everything else is a broken cistern that cannot hold water.
In a moment, we are going to sing another song. We normally would come down the aisle and respond by giving an offering and receiving communion, but I want us to hold off on that today. Today, we’ll wait for the song after this one to do those things. Today, we are going to use this time for stillness and honesty. I want this song to be a prayer—your personal heartfelt prayer. You may not be struggling with sexual immorality or greed, but there is probably something in your life that needs to be surrendered to our Father right now. After all, as Calvin once wrote, “The heart is an idol factory.” So I’m going to pray over us, and then we’re going to use this song as a prayer of surrender.
